


The Same Old Song

by blanketed_in_stars



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post-World War I, Queer History, Weimar Republic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15165776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: In the early years of the Weimar Republic, Käthe longs for her friend Anna and mourns for her war-shattered family, and finds herself confronting her place in society as well as the political tensions of the time.Originally written in German (by me); this is the English translation.





	The Same Old Song

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Das gleiche alte Lied](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15036239) by [blanketed_in_stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars). 



**1\. Winter 1918**

 

“There’s loads of relief for the soldiers,” says Anna, “we’re sending them everything we have—”

“Because they’re fighting for us,” Käthe replies.

“They don’t have to.” At Käthe’s skeptical look, Anna rolls her eyes. “Or—they shouldn’t. Meanwhile we sit here and starve, even though we’re working—I mean, don’t you get that if it keeps going like this they won’t have a country to come back to?”

Käthe shuts her book and stretches out across the bed on her stomach. “Stop talking about that stuff,” she says. “It doesn’t help.”

_“Peace and bread,_ that’s what they’re demanding—the ones who are striking,” explains Anna with another roll of her eyes, nut-brown and warm. “Aren’t you even listening? Do you understand what I’m saying at all?” She waves her hand in front of Käthe’s face.

Käthe catches it and twines the fingers of both their hands together. “Leave the war.” She kisses Anna’s knuckles and closes her eyes so that she doesn’t have to look at the newspaper. She is fifteen years old and already fed up with politics, wants only to listen to the radio and make snowmen and talk about pretty girls and see her brother again. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

 

**2\. Spring 1919**

 

Spring blooms, the buds unfurl like opening hands, and Käthe feels emptied. No wonder, without the excitement and tension of the last long years: over, all at once. “Do you think they’ll come soon?”

Mother doesn’t look up from her book. “Certainly, they’ll come.”

“Willi told me, before the fifth of May. In his last letter.” She hoped it would make her excited again, but unfortunately it hasn’t turned out that way—only a peculiar fear that she has no name for. “It’s already April twenty-ninth—”

“Hush, they’re coming!”

It takes a few seconds before Käthe realizes that Mother has stood up and gone to the window. _They’re coming._ So they’re actually coming now—Käthe hurries to the window as well and looks out. There, at the end of the street, come two figures, slowly growing recognizable out of the mist. One bigger and wider than the other, the first limping, the second slow and laboriously walking alongside. “Do you see—?”

The words stick in her throat; nothing more comes out. Mother clutches the window frame with knuckles that have gone white. “Käthe—open the door before they—”

Käthe runs quickly down the stairs so that she’s ready, although there are still a dozen meters to the door of the building. Now come the nerves, now that they’re finally here, with a knotting stomach and everything but the joy that she should be relishing, the joy that she’d expected. Father comes toward her step by step, and next to him—a crutch or a cane—and the voice from above, _Oh God, my Wilhelm—_

—

“And the coffee pot broke a few months ago, unfortunately, we had to buy a new one—”

Mother doesn’t even see it, constantly flitting around and around to re-arrange already perfectly arranged objects, but Käthe can see it in his hands: Father doesn’t want to hear. He leans wordlessly on the back of the chair and simply nods.

Mother smiles at him and straightens the doily. “I thought we might go walking in the park in a few weeks, as soon as Willi is well—” And now she looks at the floor, closes her mouth. “I mean,” she says quietly, “perhaps at least to the theatre, I know it’s not exactly cheap, but—it would be nice. I thought.”

Father doesn’t move, and it pierces like a needle to the heart. Käthe grits her teeth and speaks into the silence: “Great. I’ll ask him if he’d be up for it sometime.” Which doesn’t make any sense, but it works as an excuse. And so she leaves the room as quickly as she can, in order to not have to bear another second.

—

In the hall, Father shakes his head. “Leave him,” he says, and presses his palm against the smooth door, warm with the humid air of the June morning. “Let him be.”

 

**3\. Summer 1920**

 

“Weimar Coalition loses the majority,” Father reads aloud at the breakfast table. “Finally.” He dabs at his mustache with the napkin. “What I want to know is if we’re ever going to reinstate the Kaiser—”

“Perhaps,” says Mother, subdued, as she hums around the table. “Give me your plate, Käthe, you always eat so little.”

“I’m not hungry,” Käthe says, but hands over her plate. It doesn’t help to argue.

At that exact moment, the door swings open and everyone looks around. Then they let their gazes drop again without saying a word and act as if they can’t hear the dull knocking of wood on wood. Mother hands the plate back laden with two more slices of bread. “What would you like to eat, Willi?”

He hesitates a couple seconds. “Nothing, thanks,” he says. With effort he pushes the chair back from the table, lets himself fall into it.

“You children,” Mother sighs, her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand. We have food, though we could just as well have nothing, and you don’t want it.” She waves an arm towards the window. “Don’t you see how the poorer people on the street have to beg? Don’t you appreciate what you’ve got?”

Käthe notices how Willi has gone pale. “We can’t afford it, either,” she says quickly, and looks nervously from Mother to Father. “I only mean—I read the paper too, and we have so many things but make so little money, and if it keeps on like this…”

“We aren’t able to earn much,” says Father. “Some of us did fight, after all; do you think we should still just keep breaking our backs for a safe future?”

“No, but what we’re doing here doesn’t help either!”

“And what exactly are we doing here?” Father’s face is turning red.

Before Käthe can answer, Mother refills his glass and sets the water pitcher down on the table with a loud clatter. “Drink up, Franz, and put on your jacket. You too, Käthe.” She lays her hand on Willi’s shoulder. “Now. If we don’t want to go begging.” As Käthe brings her plate from the table, Mother speaks quietly to her. “Stop with the politics,” she whispers. “You’re upsetting your brother.”

“He agrees with me,” replies Käthe, though she’s not so sure of that. “And you do too, for that matter, if you’d just say it. You know things are changing.”

Mother just looks at her without saying a word, her lips pressed thin together.

 

**4\. Spring 1921**

 

_Dear Anna,_ Käthe writes, and doesn’t know what should come next. Everything she puts on the paper sounds wrong. And she can’t write anything without knowing how Anna will read it—if she’s in a fine apartment or perhaps even in a big house, and if she has a window somewhere with a view of the mulberry trees, and if she still smiles with those little dimples. If she doesn’t smile at all anymore. The expression has seemed strange to Käthe lately.

The apartment grows tighter, the shadows become choking. Everything around her is silent as the grave. She unclasps the locket and takes it off, puts it in the drawer. _Dear Anna._ And no address, either, it’s all pointless, it only hurts.

—

The press of her hand is quite friendly. More than friendly. “I’m Carolin,” she says and has freckles on her face. And wants to be a singer. “Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, sorry.” Käthe doesn’t smoke anymore, because of Willi, the tenants, the ever-dwindling money.

Caro sings pretty and sweet and is engaged. “I love you,” she whispers after six weeks. Her hands are hardened from work. Käthe imagines a life where they see each other every week and fall in love in the darkness. She attends the wedding, stands in the back of the church: bright daylight streams through the stained-glass windows.

 

**5\. Autumn 1921**

 

“Do you know,” says Käthe, dizzy and agreeable, “my father would kill me if he knew that I was here. My brother too, probably.” She isn’t afraid at all. Perhaps it’s because of the wine.

“Mine too,” laughs Gertrud and drains her glass.

“Is he a veteran as well?”

Gertrud frowns. “Does it matter? We’re going to disappoint them one way or another, whether they fought or not. At any rate we’ll never marry.”

“You think it can go on like this?” asks Käthe. She looks around, sees the cramped tables and the couples that bend over them as if they were alone. She knows three of them already, she doesn’t remember how long anymore. “Forever?”

“Well.” Gertrud shrugs. “If not for the two of us, then with others. It’s got to work out eventually, right?”

 

**6\. Winter 1922**

 

“Doesn’t feel like Christmas at all, does it?”

Käthe forgets sometimes that Willi is there. He’s that silent now, and doesn’t move if it’s not necessary. So far from the boy that he was—wild and radiating hope—that she almost believes her childhood to have been a figment of her imagination. It’s as though he’s slowly becoming transparent. Only when he speaks does he take on a concrete shape again. And yet she’s often alert to him in the minutes when he’s the quietest, like an alarm clock that might ring at any moment. She looks at him for so long that he falls silent again and gazes out the window to regard the slowly drifting snowflakes. Always the same wretched tableau.

“Not really, no,” she finally answers. Maybe too late. “We could turn on the radio,” she tries. “Then maybe it would be more cheerful. Like before.”

He looks at her so sharply that she gets goosebumps. “I don’t want to pretend.”

They’re quiet as footsteps go past the door. Käthe hears Mother’s voice and a chuckle from the tenants, and then they’re gone. The house groans as if in the wind. “Not everything’s changed for the worse.”

“But a lot has,” he replies. “We don’t even have our whole apartment anymore. And where’s your friend? The typist?”

“Anna?”

He nods. “I haven’t seen her in months.”

“Yes, well,” says Käthe, “we all have a lot to do. She has three siblings and her grandmother, I think she’s working in a laundry now. Somewhere on the other side of the city. She doesn’t have any time to spare. And I…”

“I know,” Willi says bitterly. “You have to work, and care for your crippled brother to boot.”

She could cry. “I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I didn’t even think it!” she says, too loud, and waits till she’s sure it didn’t disturb anyone. “For your information, I just want to be your sister again. If you think that’s possible.”

Willi moans and buries his face in his hands for a moment. “I can’t imagine it,” he says with tormented eyes. “I simply can’t fathom it anymore.”

“Why not?” Käthe asks helplessly.

He waves a hand at the room, at her, at the frost on the window, at everything that hangs suffocating in the air. “Look at our family. Look around you,” he says, and as she does it Käthe notices how dark the room has become; the dying candle is no longer enough to illuminate more than the silhouettes of the objects. “What’s become of us?”

 

**7\. Spring 1923**

 

Had she ever really thought that she could be done with war? Käthe wipes her lips in the mirror until they aren’t so red anymore and tries not to think of the Ruhr district. Easier said than done—she can hear how Father is still lamenting in the stairwell. At least he’s not bellowing anymore. “Goodbye,” she calls as she leaves the apartment.

The look that Mother throws her, almost sad with disapproval, isn’t lost on Käthe. And she doesn’t need to hear the words to understand the judgment in them. She steps into the street and wipes rain from her eyes. At least makeup isn’t politics.

The neighborhood where they lived has practically been transformed into a slum. On the street corner stands Charlotte, who wears even more lipstick and has runs in her stockings and always wishes Käthe good morning. Her uncle begs in the doorway and doesn’t look up when people go past him. And neither of them is there today.

“Miss Kühn.” Paul greets her as she enters the notary’s office. “The newspapers, for Mr. Scholz—and something else as well.”

She notices the pressure of his hand as he gives her the papers and discreetly slips the one on the bottom into the drawer of her desk. Then she brings the others in to Scholz. As she comes back to Paul, he says, “Page twenty-three. If I were you.”

She takes the magazine out and reads the title hungrily. _The Friendship._ “Luckily you’re not, otherwise I wouldn’t get anything.” Nevertheless, she flips through the pages while Paul watches expectantly. “German friendship-club meets…” She thinks of Anna and doesn’t want to. “What does this have to do with me?”

“You’ve been looking a little lonely lately,” says Paul shamelessly.

Lately? At that, Käthe has to make an effort to suppress her smile. If only.

“Perhaps if you had a pretty girlfriend,” he says.

“And I’d wear a suit?”

“That’s how it goes.” He shrugs. “I read something—the masculine woman and the feminine one, something like that.”

Käthe frowns. “I don’t feel particularly masculine.” She raises her hand towards Paul before he can open his mouth. “Please leave me be. If I’m lonely, that’s my business.”

He nods. But after a few seconds he asks, “How is your family?”

Käthe sighs. “Same old.” She shakes her head. “And…”

“And?” Unusually soft, as if they weren’t just colleagues, but friends.

“And nothing.” She smiles, lies through her teeth. “I’m doing well.”

 

**8\. Autumn 1923**

 

Willi is waiting for her when she returns. “Where do you always go?”

The tenants aren’t home, which is reassuring. “Where do I go?”

“In the evenings,” Willi clarifies. “All made up, and then you come back so late—” He hops nearer on his crutch. “Mother found it. Your locket.”

She feels sick. “It’s not mine,” she says quickly. “It belongs to Anna.” Then she realizes how that sounds. Like the truth. Damn it. “She left it behind, the last time she was here.”

“Two years ago?”

“Two and a half.” She might as well do it properly, if she’s come this far. She stands up straighter. “She doesn’t live around here. We don’t see each other anymore.” She walks towards Willi. “What did Mother tell you? What does she know?” All at once, her throat feels constricted. “Willi, please—”

“She doesn’t know anything,” he says in a gruff tone.

“Nothing? But you just—”

“Because I told her something different,” he continues, and he looks suddenly as if he’s just come from the war, as if he’d never gained back the weight and once again understands nothing. Except for his eyes, which seem old and tired. “Käthe. I’m worried about you.”

“About me?” she repeats, surprised. “I’m working. I’m earning. I—”

“You have both legs.” He shakes his head. “And you look so exhausted.”

“You’re one to talk.”

He smiles, and there it is, his old disarming smile that all the girls used to fall for. “I worry because the world doesn’t. And because I’m afraid you’re going to hurt yourself.”

It’s painful to see him like this. “I already have,” she says quietly. “Life goes on.”

“But I want to help you,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She kisses him on the cheek and he clings fast to her shoulder as never before. She waits until he lets go. “From now on, we’ll help each other.” She thinks to herself that she might be beyond saving. But she could never tell that to him. And in this moment, as he stands warm and alive beside her, she isn’t so terribly convinced that it’s true.

 

**9\. Summer 1924**

 

The scene plays out again like an old song. Father blusters, hits the table with his fist, nearly rips the newspaper in two. Mother hems and haws. The tenants eat in the other room and are so quiet that they undoubtedly catch every single word. Käthe grits her teeth.

And then Willi opens his mouth without warning and looks Father firmly in the eyes. “The Kaiser isn’t coming back,” he says, “whether you like it or not.”

Käthe’s heart beats fast in her chest. If she were to say something like that, he might hit her. Father blinks at Willi and doesn’t say a word, from anger or surprise, Käthe doesn’t know.

Willi doesn’t look at her. “Everything’s changing. And I don’t like it either. But we can’t do anything about it; it’s a sign of the times. And I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

It echoes in Käthe’s thoughts, again and again. She said something like that too, once. But it never ends.

 

**10\. Spring 1925**

 

Helene wears a suit and a monocle and speaks French, and smiles when Käthe steps on her feet. And she knows Paul and goes walking with other women on the weekends, and takes Käthe with her. The hours in the park are happy, or happier than the rest.

“Pretty necklace,” she says in March.

“Thank you.” Käthe’s boots are flecked with mud. “There’s nothing inside.” She hasn’t opened the locket in so long, she can hardly remember what the little pictures look like. The clasp may even be broken.

 

**11\. Autumn 1925**

 

“Are you coming?” asks Helene without looking around.

Käthe doesn’t want to; she only wants—well, she can’t tell anyone what she wants. Not even Helene. So she stands up and follows. “Where are we going?”

“To the future.” Helene smiles at her and watches from the corners of her eyes. “You spend too much time at home, we hardly even see each other anymore. Tonight we’re going to _do_ something.”

_Something_ turns out to be dancing: and despite her weariness, Käthe has to admit that she would never have come here with her family. A hall like this—dazzling lights, swirling dresses decked in feathers, and everywhere in the turmoil a music that’s practically visible and pulses in her veins.

“This isn’t a cabaret or anything, is it?” Käthe has to lean close to Helene to be heard. “I don’t know if—”

“We can’t all stay in our mausoleums all day,” says Helene. She takes Käthe by the wrist and pulls her aside, where they aren’t poked with the elbows of the pressing crowd. “Tell me if you want to go, but—I just want to give you the opportunity to have fun. I want to see you happy.”

It’s as if something awful is stuck to her face, the way Helene is looking at her. “All right.” Käthe squeezes her hand. “Let’s dance, then.”

And they dance, and Käthe does try to be happy—not to think of Father or Willi or the long, silent hours. She can go under in the middle of the crowd, concentrate on the steps and nothing else. But eventually her feet hurt and she limps to one side in order to lean on one of the small tables.

She sees Helene, who doesn’t see her—dancing with another woman whose red necktie stands out like a signal against the sea of suits. Then Käthe is distracted as someone taps her on the shoulder. She turns.

It’s the cigarette smoke that she notices first, and coughs as it wafts into her face. “Sorry,” says a husky voice.

“It’s nothing,” Käthe replies.

The man smiles sheepishly. “You’re actually standing at our table,” he says, and inclines his head at the half-drunk glasses.

“Oh—pardon me.” Käthe steps away from the table. “I didn’t know—”

“And how would she have known?” asks a woman on the man’s other side. “We didn’t even leave our handkerchiefs behind.” She nudges him. “Look, she’s turning red. You should dance with her, Johannes, so she can forgive you.”

Käthe only comprehends what has just happened once they’re on the dance floor again. “Anna,” she says, thinks confusedly of the name and looks again for clues on her face. The same nut-brown eyes. “I didn’t know—” she says again. She’s warm. In the skin where their hands press against one another, she can feel everything. She clears her throat. “So, Johannes.”

Johannes smiles. The music is too loud, however, to talk much, so they steer towards the other side of the dance floor, across from the musicians. Now they don’t have to shout. “I recognized you when you came in.” When Käthe stays quiet, Johannes frowns. “Do your shoes hurt,” he says, “or am I just not as good a dancer as I used to be?”

It’s as if something’s stuck in her throat. “I was actually thinking of sitting down when you found me,” Käthe tells him.

“Don’t you like to dance anymore?”

“No, I do.” Käthe shrugs. “My friend brought me here—” She cranes her neck in order to catch a glimpse of Helene. Somehow she’s afraid of losing her touch on reality. As if Johannes isn’t the realest thing she’s encountered in years. “There, in the green dress. With the woman—with the red tie?”

Johannes twirls her around so that he faces the dancing pair. “I see them.” His smile grows crooked. “They’re kissing.”

“What?” Käthe breaks away and sees Helene right away: exactly as described.

“Surprised?” asks Johannes.

“Well, not really,” Käthe admits. “But I mean—she didn’t have to force me out of the house if she just wanted to find someone for herself. I would’ve preferred to stay home.” She has to laugh, thinking about that again.

Johannes clicks his tongue. “That’s too bad.” He has dimples in his cheeks and soft fingers that don’t press the fabric of her dress. “If you had, I wouldn’t have found you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!!!
> 
> Some notes on the significance of certain lines/events:
> 
> 1\. Historical context - Section 1 refers to the [Januarstreik of 1918.](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/workers-prepare-to-strike-in-germany) Section 3 mentions the [Federal Election of 1920.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_1920) Section 7 contains a hint about the [occupation of the Ruhr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr) which began in 1923 and lasted until 1925. Finally, section 9 doesn't have any direct references but is intended to hint at the approval of the [Dawes Plan,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan) which stipulated, among other things, the reparations Germany was to pay for World War I.
> 
> 2\. The entire story takes place between 1918-1925, which is not what most people think of in connection with the Weimar Republic. This was intentional: 1924 is generally viewed as the beginning of the "real" Golden Twenties in Germany, after partial recovery from economic instability and governmental upheaval. Even this image is fairly misleading, but by setting the story mostly in the early years of the Weimar Republic, the reality of social change and the specter of war (both past and future) is a little more visible.
> 
> 3\. Kind of connected with the last point - the point of this story isn't to excuse or sympathize with the society that gave rise to the Third Reich, but simply to offer a very small part of an explanation. In fact, the biggest theme is the lives of queer people, particularly women, at this time, but some political and social commentary is necessary since queer struggles never have and never will exist in a vacuum.
> 
> 4\. Finally: Johannes is trans. Käthe is a queer woman. Labels will never capture the multitude of erotic experience.
> 
> For those who are interested, I have a ton of literature on all these topics, as well as book recs and stuff, so hmu if you're interested :) It's just a little story but there's quite a bit of background material that created it.


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